Is enterprise software development different from traditional software development? In general, enterprise software development involves many functions and complexities that deal with complex business processes and procedures. As its name implies, enterprise software development projects generally revolve around building software programs architected to meet the needs of enterprise and large businesses organizations rather than individual users. In contrast, traditional software development focuses on developing software applications to a solve unique problem or requirement.
Enterprise software applications are often complex and inter-connected. One standalone aspect of an enterprise software, if malfunctioned, could easily have a big impact on an enterprise’s operation. It is critical that you select the right enterprise software development company which possesses the necessary technical skills and knowledge required of your development projects.
In this article, let’s take a look at some of the important factors when choosing an enterprise software development company.
Key Skills and Capabilities of an Enterprise Software Development Company
Software development companies that provide enterprise software development services must be experienced with the entirety of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) as well as a solid understanding of system architecture.
They should also be well-versed in business process analysis along with a thorough understanding of integration principles, and have experiences with Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), and other software development best practices.
Expertise in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
First of all, your enterprise software development company should have a good understanding of the software development life cycle (SDLC), including a focus on documentation and maintenance. They should also be highly experienced with other stages of the SLDC like software architecting, programming, testing, deployment and maintenance.
Experience with various software development methodologies
Enterprise software development projects often follow specific development methodologies such as agile (which includes frameworks like Kanban, Scrum, and Extreme Programming), or traditional waterfall methodologies.
Estimation techniques
Your enterprise software development team should be skilled in using time-based and story-point estimation techniques to accurately estimate the time, complexity, uncertainty, developer skills, and effort required to develop and maintain software.
Requirements management
This includes working with stakeholders to understand their needs, developing and documenting requirements, and managing changes to requirements. The ability to effectively collect, document and manage requirements is essential and required for enterprise software development companies.
Ability to leverage proven solutions
Many solutions (including technologies, methods, patterns) for various enterprise problems have been proposed a long time ago and are proven to be effective, documented, and well known in the development community.
The purpose of using these standard practices is to reduce the number of potential errors, architectural errors, and rewrites. Thus, your enterprise software developers should be able to apply these approaches to designing and developing complex, scalable, and reliable systems that meet the specific business needs.
Proficiency in software integration and reuse concepts
As mentioned before, many enterprise software applications do not operate in silo but are interconnected as a part of a larger system. Thus, knowing how to integrate between existing software systems and reuse existing components is another critical skill for your enterprise software development company. Software reusability and durability can bring many benefits to your business processes, such as reducing development time and effort and improving software quality and reliability.
Reusing tested and proven components, libraries, frameworks, or patterns can reduce development time and costs by avoiding duplication, incompatibilities, and errors when using existing building blocks. By using standardization, the process of understanding and modifying software can be simplified, and costs can be further reduced by adhering to established contracts and documentation, while ensuring consistency.
Experience working with complex, highly regulated software systems
When it comes to enterprise operations, reliability is usually a point of focus. The same is also applied for enterprise software applications as they are developed and put into use to support critical business processes, meeting the needs of specific business units. Therefore, enterprise software companies must ensure to deliver software that is reliable and compliant:
Rigorous development
This process involves adherence to strict requirements, clearly defined architecture, and design standards as well as coding standards. These main policies help prevent errors, reduce rework, and ensure that your enterprise software meets all the business needs and legal requirements.
Extensive testing
Software QA and testing is essential for reliability. It is a best practice for software developers to cover their code with functional/unit/integration tests. Automated testing systems help ensure that all critical functions are properly tested.
Implement security measures
Your enterprise software must be developed adhering to coding standards, and ensure data encryption, and access controls.
SLAs, SLOs, and SLIs adherence
Most business software has strict service level agreements that define usability, functionality, user experience and other criteria. Experienced enterprise software development teams should be aware of the requirements imposed by these systems, such as portability, compatibility, availability, etc.
Hands-on experience working with CI/CD pipelines
Analytics, tracking, and retention policies play a key role in helping organizations manage their data effectively. Security clearance forms outline necessary security measures, building trust between stakeholders through clear and accurate reporting. This is where a CI/CD approach becomes crucial. Developers are responsible for implementing CI/CD solutions that streamline this process.
CI/CD promotes accountability by documenting when changes are made, who made them, and what system components were affected (such as code, tools, or resources). Over time, this creates a continuous record of user activity and system modifications.
Additional Competencies to Consider
When partnering with an enterprise software development company, you should also consider other considerations including domain-specific expertise, a tech stack, and experience with cloud environments. However, all these aspects depend on your project and its details.
Specific industry knowledge
While enterprise developers may not be experts in their field, the more domain knowledge they have, the more value they can add to a project. These professionals need domain knowledge to understand the needs of the business and its users, make informed decisions about software development and implementation, communicate effectively with stakeholders, and build trust.
Let’s say a programmer knows finance. This allows them to respond to customer needs rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all approach to customer needs. This type of insight requires technical expertise and direct customer experience.
Technologies and tools stack
Another thing to pay attention to is the technical skills of the software engineers when developing enterprise software. You can conduct an interview and ask the team members to describe the tools, languages, frameworks, methods and standards they have adopted in their company software projects or roles.
Understanding of cloud technologies and hybrid environments
Many enterprise organizations operate in a hybrid environment, using a combination of on-premises and cloud-based systems. Your development team needs to be capable of building software that fits seamlessly into these hybrid architectures. This is where cloud experience is critical for the success of the project.
Conclusion
Enterprise software development projects are large and complex, requiring integration of existing systems, the ability to handle large amounts of data, robust security measures, and adherence to industry standards and compliance regulations.
Given the complexity and critical nature of enterprise software development, it’s important that you select the software development company with the right skills and expertise.
An ideal enterprise software development company should have deep expertise in the SDLC, strong architectural knowledge, a thorough understanding of integration and reusability principles, extensive experience with complex, structured software, and proficiency in CI/CD pipelines.
Working with a software development company enables the development process to become faster, reduces risk, and gives you access to a pool of talented developers.